Kinsey: Gall Wasp Genus Cynips 
369 
RANGE. — Probably as given for the agamic form prinoides (fig. 
62) ; probably restricted to an area on or near the Atlantic Coastal 
Plain. This bisexual form known only from: 
Massachusetts: eastern part (M. T. Thompson coll. No. 166). 
Connecticut: Waterbury (types, Bassett). 
New Jersey: Lakehurst (acc. Beutenmuller 1911). 
TYPES. — Numerous females, males, and galls. The holotype fe- 
male, paratype females, males, and galls in the Philadelphia Academy; 
paratype females, males, and galls in the American Museum of Natural 
History, the U.S. National Museum, the Museum of Comparative Zool- 
ogy, the Kinsey collection, and, presumably, in the Beutenmuller collec- 
tion. From Waterbury, Connecticut; May; Q. prinoides; Bassett col- 
lector. 
The holotype and most of the paratypes have been studied in mak- 
ing the present re-descriptions. 
Altho not represented by many collections, the good-sized 
series of this insect in the Bassett and Thompson collections 
indicate that proper search should reveal this as a very com- 
mon even if obscure form in the leaf and flower buds 
of the chinquapin oak, Q. prinoides. Bassett described the 
galls as fully developed when the staminate flowers of the oak 
are in bloom. He remarked that “When the gall happens to 
be in a leaf bud, it is often found at the summit of a young 
branch one or two inches long, so rapid is the growth of the 
tree at this season. . . . The insects appear in both sexes 
about the middle of May ...” [at Waterbury, Connecticut] . 
A Bassett specimen in the American Museum is labelled as 
in coitu on May 10 (1879) . Thompson found the galls late in 
May in eastern Massachusetts, and Beutenmuller recorded (in 
Smith 1910 :599) galls occurring in May and June— the cells 
probably being empty for some time before they disappear 
from the dried-up flower buds. 
Bassett originally spelled this name gemula, a feminine 
adjective meaning moaning or complaining. It seems evident 
that Bassett intended to write gemmula, a noun meaning a 
small bud. This would aptly describe the gall of this insect. 
Perhaps it is not certain that Article 19 of the International 
Rules allows an emendation of this original form as a lapsus 
calami; but perhaps we need common sense rather than rules 
in this case. 
Gemmula is here taken to be the bisexual form alternating 
with the agamic prinoides. My reasons for this opinion are 
as follows : 
24—45639 
